Nomad's Land
by Spectre-Realm
Summary: Three years ago, Harry Potter left for the Muggle World to escape anguish and loss unlike anything he had ever known. But when his Muggle employer gives Harry his new assignment, he must face the ghosts of his past and the love he left behind...


**Rated: R (Language, Violence)**

**Pairing: Harry/Hermione**

**Genre: Romance/Angst/Humor**

**Summary:**

Three years ago, Cornelius Fudge's substantially more corrupt replacement as Minister of Magic saw to it that Harry Potter would experience anguish and loss that was unlike anything he had ever known. But on this occasion, the young Auror had not been content to stand by the wayside. He would exact his grisly revenge, and, after having done so, was determined to walk away from the world that had brought him nothing but betrayal and suffering. His lone regret for this chosen course of action, however, was that, as a marked man, he had deemed it necessary to make the hard choice of cutting ties with the woman he loves though he never had the opportunity to reveal his feelings to her citing fears for her safety.

Through Mundungus Fletcher, Harry contacts an American Muggle known to him only as 'JT', for the perfect line of employment; a job that fully utilizes his considerable and diverse talents, is never short on adrenaline-spiking peril, and keeps the legendary wizard thousands of miles away from a lifetime's worth of anguish, gross injustice and ill-founded mistrust ... until now, that is...

Harry's newest assignment will force him to, quite literally, confront the ghosts of his past ... and the woman he loves.

Will fate finally see to Harry Potter's long-overdue vindication and fill the gaping void in his heart with the love of the only woman that ever could? Or will his not entirely wholesome line of work for the past three years only add to the slew of indictments from his past life?

**-One-**

**In the Valley of the Blind**

**Rousse, Bulgaria: December 21, 2010**

21 kilometers south of the town of the Bulgarian town of Rousse, under dusk skies that were, fittingly so, the deepest of crimson, half of my hunt had been completed. In the cliff-faced derelict ruins of the 13th century-built Ivanovo Monastery, the structure's first inhabitant since the 17th century, lay dead at my feet.

But unlike every Death Eater and spy that had gazed up at me through sightless eyes and expressions of abject terror etched into their facial features forevermore, this legalized-form of Dark Witch was so much more to me than just another notch in my wand.

This witch, wife of the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic and daughter of the Minister of Magic herself, had been able to always stay a step ahead of my brand of justice for six frustrating months. She was the first of the only three wizards on earth capable of satisfying my maniacal quest for closure. She was a death that had solved half of the equation responsible for the deaths of all but one of my best friends.

But I could not allow myself to be consumed by the grief just yet. No ... there would come a time for the hurt, oh yes ... but to do so now meant failure, weakness and a broken promise to the fallen. And since I had already failed my friends once with my lackadaisical over-confidence after killing Voldemort, I was not about to let my guard down in any way that might even have the remote chance of allowing me to repeat past mistakes.

So driven by an eagerness to face the trial that the dead woman before me had spoken of before I ended her life, I emptied my dragon hide travel satchel of the salt-cured pork I carried with me in the field, placed what I had deemed the most suitable memento of this excursion into it, and set out at once to make the other half of my focused fury realize what it felt like, in some small way, to lose the ones nearest and dearest to them...

**Ministry of Magic, Courtroom 10: December 23, 2010**

"Order," said the Minister of Magic, Madam Edgecombe, imperiously to the chattering Wizengamot that fell silent at once. "Presiding over this hearing, on this day of twenty-three, December, 2010, Madam Emelia Edgecombe: Minister of magic; Mr. Zacharius Smith: Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic; and Mr. Dale Dawlish: Court Scribe.

"For the record: You are Harry James Potter of number 12 Grimmauld Place, London, are you not?"

"For the record: you know that I am, Madam Beachcomb," I barked nastily. "Why-"

"And," she continued loudly, cutting me off as if I had not muttered a single syllable in a scathing reply. "Is the Wizengamot to understand that you have chosen to waive your right to legal council?"

"That is precisely what the Wizengamot should understand," I replied in sing-song fashion, then quickly and disdainfully added. "Dear woman that speaks as if she is in the third person at all times."

To greet my words, she fixed me with a stare that would have killed the meek and timid, but chose not to reply to my contemptuous remarks verbally.

"The charges," she said, her tone a molten flow of suppressed rage. "The Wizengamot has learned, through several reliable sources that shall remain unnamed citing fears of retaliation observed you, Mr. Potter, on several occasions between the months of September and December, employing the use of no less than four different Animagus forms. Do you deny these allegations?"

"Yep," I said breezily, bumping my dragon hide satchel impatiently with my foot, aching to reveal its contents, but resisted the urge, nonetheless.

"Oh, really?" she shot back, narrowing her eyes malevolently. "So, what you are saying is that those witches and wizards that gave sworn testimony before this very court, testimony stating otherwise, that these people are lying are lying then?"

"Yes, really," I said vaguely, enjoying every last moment of pissing this woman off to no end. "Did I stutter?"

"Why is everything such a big joke to you, Mr. Potter?" she hollered, slamming both of her plump fists on the wooden surface harboring her documents, that cool facade of hers starting to show the wear and tear of my mocking this pseudo-court. "Your life is all just fun and games, isn't it? Well, young man, I have news for you! Not only have I processed your termination papers, thereby dissolving your position as an Auror with my Ministry, your indictments, if you are convicted on all counts, carry a collective minimum penalty of eight years in Azkaban.

"However," she continued full-bore, "since this is not the first time you have mocked _me_ and _my_ court, I will see to it that these charges: four counts Class-A felonious Misuse of an Unregistered Animagus Form; two counts felonious Use of Excessive Force; eight counts felonious Misuse of Banned Potion Ingredients Resulting in Wrongful Death; one count of Absence Without Leave; and one count Contempt of Court, which I've just now added, are punished swiftly and to the full extent of the law!

"So, Mr. Potter," she added, her tone shedding several decibels, a self-satisfied expression taking the place of angry indignation. "I'llwager that these proceedings aren't quite as humorous to you as they once were, _are they_?"

"Oh, quite the contrary, Madam Roostercomb," I retorted, suppressing albeit with great difficulty the overwhelming urge to roar with laughter. "I find this gathering of Village Idiots to be very amusing ... very amusing indeed...

"But my original intention was not to question the validity of your informants' bought-and-paid-for drivel that operates under the guise of "sworn testimony". No, I simply meant to amend the number of felonious Animagus violations I should be charged with. You see, Madam Hedgebone, in reality, I have mastered the ability to take the form of twenty-one different Animagi, thank you very much ... so I consider only four counts to be a great insult..."

"So!" she exclaimed triumphantly, "you wish to confess to the charges against you? Do you? Because if that is your intention, the Wizengamot shall take your willingness to repent into account, when my sentencing is rendered."

"Oh, I'm guilty all right," I said smoothly, retrieving my satchel from beneath my chair and placing it on my lap. "I'm quite guilty on all counts, Madam Breastbone. But just so you know, dear Madam Wedgebone, I can assure you that sentencing will be completely unnecessary in this case, since I will not be spending even one moment of my life in Azkaban Fortress."

"I see," she said with a malicious giggle, "You seem to forget that you are surrounded by Aurors that would just _love_ to take a shot at the legendary Harry Potter. And surely, you remember that my dear son in law was," she placed a pudgy hand on Zacharius Smith's shoulder, "the Ministry's ranking Auror before becoming my Senior Undersecretary? And furthermore, as you well know, if any subordinate by subordinate, I mean _you_ attacks a senior Ministry official thanks to proposed and publicly approved legislation that individual, or subordinate, I should say, will receive the penalty of death?"

"Indeed, I do," I said before broadcast intent blared at me from Zacharius Smith's position, who was shifting anxiously.

What a turd...

"But," I continued, "now that you have clearly stated your position, you will kindly allow _me_ to make _my_ position perfectly clear-

"So help me God," I growled menacingly, without breaking eye contact with Madam Edgecomb, as perhaps the weakest Auror in the history of magic allowed his thoughts and their intentions to be known long before putting them into motion, again. "If you lay one finger on that wand handle _Mister_ Zacharius Smith, I will kill you before you can get to your feet ... of that, you can be most assured.

"I suggest that you just sit there, junior, wearing that weak and pathetic expression over your glass jaw. Don't make me change my mind and decide to kill you for being the most inept, clumsy and cowardly Auror in the history of the world."

"And," I announced in the direction of the Ministry's replacement versions of my people: who had been _real_ Aurors. Aurors that had been almost entirely exterminated by 'accidents', simply because they were lawful men and women, and since I had been naive enough to believe that evil and greed had died with Voldemort. "if any of you," I conveyed a silent challenge in a lingering glare at each of these 'Aurors' in his or her own turn, "wish to attempt what junior was thinking, I trust you've heard that I don't need a wand to kill you ... so save yourselves a bit of pain and suffering, won't you? Show's almost over people, so indulge me with a few more moments of your time, and I'll send you on your way, completely unhurt."

"Mr. Potter!" shrieked Madam Edgecombe, positively glowing with indignation. "This court-"

"Is a piece of shit and a farce, Madam Breadboard," I concluded, cutting her off, then spat on the chamber floor. "Besides, you have my full confession on record ... scribed by your donkey, Dawlish, no less.

"And though it is true that I did waive the right to legal counsel," I said, forging ahead, "I am, as a defendant, entitled to closing remarks ... even in here: quite possibly the most unlawful side-show courtroom drama since the Salem Witch Trials ... so shut your mutton face, before a Severing Charm takes your tongue ... giving me a lovely soft-tissue item that would make a handsome key chain. And nope ... I don't need a wand for that either, understood? Am I making myself plain enough for you?"

"There, now that's settled," I continued briskly to the again-silent chamber at large, my bag of tricks held loosely in my left hand. "Many of you might have been laboring under the delusion that I, Harry Potter, slated for extermination and convicted of false crimes long ago, came here today seeking a fair trial before my peers? Boy ... and I thought _I_ was naive!

"Because truth be told, I have lived amongst all of you long enough to know that when it comes to today's Wizengamot, 'fair' is no longer synonymous with 'trial' in these hallowed chambers. But I digress...

"As you all know, between the ages of one and eleven, I lived with the Dursleys: Muggles that, suffice it to say, were not entirely supportive of my direction in life ... but had never taken someone near and dear away from me.

"My cousin, Dudley, used me as a punching bag. My aunt, Petunia, did her best to reenact Nazi tactics of slow starvation coupled with hard, manual labor. My uncle, Vernon, took great delight in, after ripping great clumps of my hair out on a daily basis, locking me into a broom cupboard under the stairs ... just to insure that his proven methods stayed sharp, the hair harvest was always a bountiful yield, and my additional misery would be spent alone and in the dark. Yet still, these people had never taken someone near and dear away from me..."

After a short pause to catch my breath, I continued.

"Now, on my eleventh birthday, everything changed with just one letter, telling me that my I true /I home was here, with witches and wizards, and _not_ on Number Four, Privet Drive. So I was off to Hogwarts, and still, the Dursleys had never taken someone near and dear away from me...

"Anyway, to make a long story short, this world gave me everything I for the most part that is could have ever possibly wished for: Pride, security and friends and something as simple as a reason to continue living and breathing. I now had people that were near and dear to me, and it was not within the Dursleys' power to take them away from me.

"But in my fourth year at Hogwarts, this world accomplished the one thing that the Dursleys never could: The loss of someone near and dear to me. Voldemort-" I had to wait for the cowards, crooks and common thieves that comprised today's Wizengamot to cease their pathetic behavior before continuing, "Anyway, dear old Voldy had Cedric Diggory killed before my very eyes. And let me just say, at the age of fourteen, seeing another young man murdered for being deemed a 'spare' is something one is not likely to forget anytime soon.

"Now in my fifth year, I would lose Sirius Black, a man that, in addition to being the dearest friend to the father I had never known, was the breathing version of the next best replacement to the father that died when I was a baby. What made this loss even more devastating, however, was the fact that he died protecting me from an escaped Death Eater, Bellatrix Lestrange; when he need not have died in the first place. Two years and two losses of people close to me ... the trend was killing me from the inside out...

"Even after my Auror training, grief still gnawed at my guts, but I completed the Voldemort hunt, as per Sybil Trelawney's prophecy, alone, achieving victory with relative ease. It did not help much, but my heart did become a bit lighter.

"With no time to spare for grief, I, along with an extremely gifted group of Aurors; not like these pieces of shit you people have replaced them with," I paused, savoring the aura of anger and feeble ineptitude that hung heavy heavy in Courtroom 10, "made short work in seeing to their extermination.

"For the first time in years, though I knew it would not bring anyone back, my personal losses didn't hurt as much. And what's more, for one day at least, it appeared that all of us were going to live long and happy lives, prompting me to devise a method of sharing the feelings I had been concealing from the woman that I had fallen in love with. I never got the chance...

"All too quickly, you, Madam Porkboned, with your 'emergency' measures that played to the publics fears and desires for lasting security, stripped me and my Aurors of nearly every tool we needed to perform our jobs."

"Mr. Potter," Madam Edgecombe said, her expression chalk-white. "I am sure I don't-"

"S-shut up!" I roared, my voice catching slightly, but determined to conceal my moment of weakness before these wolves, as the tidal wave of emotions, replete with savage guilt and a feeling of loss beyond anything I could every hope to verbalize, threatened to crush my quivering body to the floor. "Do not speak!"

The white-hot fury welling up in me caused a minor loss of control, and as it escaped, a moderate quake shook the chamber. The stone ceiling and walls groaned and cracked with the strain of protest. The Wizengamot representatives shrieked and scrambled for cover with hands over their heads to deflect falling debris. Wooden desks in the chamber creaked, then splintered ... I was losing my composure...

"_SILENCE_!" I roared, finally able to find my voice and patching a repair on my emotional levy. "_SIT DOWN_!"

After many moments of deep, calming breaths and self-reassurance that this would all soon be over, I was able to continue.

"Now," I said evenly, though my chest continued to heave violently. "do not rudely interrupt me by insulting my intelligence with your denials, Minister. I have not appeared here today to see you convicted of anything. In fact, my intention is to not only see that you keep your job as Minister, it is also to see that your oppressive regime is given even _more_ power than it currently possesses; since I feel that our society, err, correction, _your _society, should reap what it has sown. Because in my eyes, only when I have achieved every objective that I have sought to secure to this point, will the true reckoning be realized by you and your spineless ilk.

"You have my word that whatever events transpire here today, will follow me to the grave. Moving on...

"Does anyone here know what exhibit A: my magical bag of tricks, might contain?" I asked, showcasing my satchel, so that the entire chamber could get a look at it.

"The salted pork you carry in the field?" asked Zacharius Smith stupidly.

"Ahh," I said, smiling and nodding appreciatively, "I see that word does get around. Aren't you just the wellspring of knowledge? Clever deduction, but no, Mr. Smith, it's more of a pork bi-product, I guess you might say. By that I mean this satchel's contents are something that belongs not only to you, Mr. Smith, but to your rotund mother in law as well..."

For the first time, comprehension dawned on them, prompting me to savor every moment of panic that had been etched into the faces of both the Minister and her son in law. It was poetic justice to know that, on this day of judgment, they were the ones being sentenced, not me.

"Do you remember what I told you in our sixth year, Mr. Smith?" I asked, but when he greeted my question with silence, I continued, "When I told you that your reckless thoughts were there for even the most inept Legilimens to peruse at will? That even a child would know your plans and secrets months before you acted accordingly to them?"

Still, panic stricken and silent, the suspense was even starting to make me chomp at the bit. It was time for closure...

"Well, Mr. Smith," I continued smoothly, "on this day you can find comfort in the fact that it was you and your unsheltered, worthless mindthat offered your dear and, quite lovely, I might add, red-haired wife, Marietta Edgecomb Smith's, head to me on a silver platter.

"Because I will tell you one thing ... even though the misses saw to the wholesale slaughter of my fellow Aurors and friends, I cannot help but compliment her considerable skills of evasion! She never once tipped her hand. Oh yes ... she was easily the stealthiest adversary that I have ever tracked...

"But," I continued, now making my way to he and his mother in law's bench, "in the end, I caught her hiding amongst the rats in that dilapidated monastery, and I have you to thank, Mr. Smith.

"Anyway," I said, placing the satchel before Madam Edgecombe. "since everywhere I will ever go for the remainder of my days, you people will always have a piece of me that I can never recover, I thought that perhaps I should be the better person here and give you a piece of yourselves that I have taken. Besides that, should that piece of me you've taken ever be lonely, I can rest easy by knowing that this reminder," I patted the satchel, "will be there to help. After all, they say misery loves company ... and who am I to disagree?"

With those final words, I turned and strode toward the chamber doors, as Madam Edgecombe's shaking hands fumbled with the snaps of my satchel. And just as I had opened the doors to exit the Ministry of Magic's Courtroom 10, a mother's screams of agony, a husband's howls of guilty loss, and the spattering sounds of many Ministry officials vomiting told me that the Minister had exposed the satchel's curly, red-haired contents ... and that she was now looking into the terrified expression and eyes that had stared so lifelessly into my very own, from a ruined monastery's stone floor, 21 miles south of the Bulgarian town of Rousse.

Finally, as I strode purposefully toward the Ministry's fireplaces that would take me home, the cool steel that had been cleaving my heart for what seemed like an eternity, slowly began to withdraw their blades, still dripping with the deep-crimson blood of my soul.

It was time for the hurt now ... and on this day of reckoning, by the sheer Grace of the Gods, I no longer had a reason to tether it...


End file.
